photovoltaic

Chemists at the University of California Riverside (UCR) have devised a way of increasing solar cell efficiency by as much as 30%. With current photovoltaic cells unable to surpass 33% due to the Shockley-Queisser limit, a boost of 30%, to a total efficiency of 60% or more, would be absolutely huge — and exactly what solar power needs if it ever hopes to be a cost-efficient alternative to fossil fuel power generation. Best of all, though, this new method for boosting solar cell efficiency has an awesome name: singlet fission.

Ford’s new concept car promises to free us from the grid and the gas pump, provided you don’t have to drive too far. The C-MAX Solar Energi can charge itself up with built-in solar panels and a Frensel lenses.

A collaboration of Swiss institutions, including IBM Research, has announced that it’s developing a highly efficient, low-cost photovoltaic system that’s capable of concentrating “the power of 2,000 suns.” The collaboration claims that the system, which is targeted at dry regions such as southern Europe, Africa, the south west of North America, South America, and Australia, will have an overall efficiency of 80% — and, miraculously, be able to provide a source of fresh water, too.

Researchers from the University of Oslo have used a bunch of “wonderful tricks” to produce silicon solar cells that are twenty times thinner than commercial solar cells. This breakthrough means that solar cells can be produced using 95% less silicon, reducing production costs considerably — both increasing profits (which are almost nonexistent at the moment), and reducing the cost of solar power installations.

There are two key breakthroughs here: First, this is the highest efficiency polymer solar cell (PSC) yet created; and, perhaps more importantly, researchers have historically struggled to get get past 10 or 20% transparency — and this is almost 70% transparent.

After more than 20 years of continued research, electrochemist Michael Gratzel of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology has cracked it: He has created a cheap photovoltaic cell that uses an organic, printed dye to absorb sunlight.

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